A Broad Abroad

First week of classes completed and I’m still standing! My classes are on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. So, I have a couple of free days but not really as I will be using them to do coursework. This term I have two business courses: Intro to Business Consulting and Operations & Project Management and two psychology courses: Psychology @ Work and Organizational Culture & Conflict. All my professors have so much enthusiasm and passion for what they are teaching and you can see in their lectures and how they work to engage students.

So here’s some info on my classes this term.

Intro to Business Consulting

So, I survived my first day of classes although it was just two and they covered what would be taking place for this term. My first day included Intro to Business Consulting where I got meet the people in my program as of right now there are 6 of us but there will be a few more joining us. They had some visa delays. We are currently a class of all women from Poland, China, Thailand and the U.S., which is me. It was a lot of information to take in. This course will include class discussions, guest speakers and field trips. There will be 5 assessments and a final report. Just to clarify, Assessments = Graded Assignments. The head of the program Adam Smith, noted that he focuses more on learning than grading and because we are such a small program no one has ever failed the program. It feels like this is going to be a very supported program and we work closely as a group. I have also become the class representative by default. When he shared his mobile number, I happened to be the first person to text him so he made me the rep. Basically, I’m point of contact for the group and the course.

We also got a tour of the Business offices where the support staff is located and also a tour of ABVentures, which is the entrepreneurial division of the Business School. So, if we have any ideas or want to do research, we have access to the facilities and can also use it to meet at a group and it also includes a 3D printer. Adam had a sign up for the ABVentures class and it’s our first assignment this week.

I’m excited about the site visits as they will include the Aberdeen Football Team, Spar one of the grocers in the country and possibly an electric company. He’s hoping to fit in 5 visits that include a tour of the facilities and meeting with the CEOs. He will also be sending us opportunities to take advantage of outside of classes. He also mentioned having a class dinner up where he lives and giving a tour of his village. He also asked the class if he could bring his dogs in once a while – Yes, Please!

Psychology @ Work & Organizational Culture & Conflict

Both of my psychology courses are pretty small and are mostly my classmates. My professor is Linda Engles and she teaches both my psych classes. She has experience as both a psychologist and consultant. I’m really going to enjoy my psych classes as they are set up for discussion and hands on activities. You watch pre-recorded PPT along with readings prior to class.

Funny story about viewing the first pre-recorded PPT, which is done by another professor. Halfway through the recording her dog started barking and she just continued on with the recording and worked it into her presentation. Unfortunately, viewing the pre-recorded PPT isn’t as fun as the class, so it’s was difficult to stay focused.

What I have noticed about my professors are that they are all very personable and work to create a welcoming environment. My psych teacher goes cold water swimming on Saturdays at Aberdeen beach and invites her students. Although it’s 8:30am on a Saturday. So not only do I have to deal with cold water but an early morning swim. But maybe, I’ll be brave enough to drag my ass out of bed and into freezing cold water.

Ops & Project Management

My Ops & Project Management class is taught by John Lamb, who has an extremely thick Scottish accent and is a fast talker. Similar to psych, he posts pre-recorded videos. He speaks clearly and slowly in the PPT recordings but class is completely different. I did a pretty good job following him although there were a few times I was like what the hell did he just say. I feel for students where English is not their first language, since I found it difficult at times and English is my first language. This is my largest class as it has other students from the business school. And what I mean by large, there are probably 25 students.

My Free Days (not really): Wednesday & Thursday

So, this Wednesday we were invited by Adam to an event where students from the University and Robert Gordon University worked on year long project to solve a problem identified by their school. The projects were quite diverse and the solution was tech based – an app, website, etc. There were three different prizes and the finalists presented their project by video and then answered questions by the judges.

So, the three groups that won were ApeScrape, Pathway and HistoTrak. Here’s a little bit about their project:

• ApeScrape: a site that helps you pull specific information from various sites into a downloadable document. They were asked to create a site that would allow the admissions office to do a search on online courses that had certain search criteria.
• Pathway: Address the problem of the wait time for knee replacement surgery by pulling in various factors to prioritize patients.
• HistoTrak: Replay of go cart race by placing sensors on the cart allowing you to review your race from different perspectives as well as overlay to other carts.

It was really interesting to see their work along with their videos. Some of them were extremely creative. One of the finalist videos was set up like The Office and it was hilarious.

In addition to the finalist videos, they had a guest speaker who was a former analyst for the British Central Intelligence Agency where she couldn’t even share stories and for the longest time no one knew that was her job. Even not being able to share that information, she was fascinating talking about the human element for data. She did share her work around the Olympics when they were in London and how it included a team of data analysts as well as non-data/techies. She mentioned that the most valuable team member was someone that had a philosophy background. I really enjoyed listening to her talk about the importance of add the human element to data and technology.

Unfortunately, nothing too exciting on Thursday where I spent most of the day at the library getting ready for my Friday classes. I find going to the library helps me stay focused and there is a great view from the 5th floor.

Wrapping Up the Week

I wrapped up my Friday day by hangin out after class with two of my classmates from my psych class. We grabbed coffee at the local cafe that has my maple latte (YES!) and chatted about school, why the University of Aberdeen and current events.

I think Friday after class from grabbing coffee with two my classmates to going out with Haley and Ella has been one of my favorite moments. It’s always great to get to know people and hear about the their experiences and where they come from. I’m looking forward to many more this year.